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TV Reviews: FTN Reviews Agent Carter Season 01 Episode 03: Time and Tide

January 14th, 2015 by Todd Black Comments

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After a phenomenal premiere, it was a little disheartening to me that Agent Carter took a small downstep in this episode. To be fair, a lot of the stuff was phenomenal, but a few key scenes really felt forced, especially when given their conclusions.

On the plus side, “Time and Tide” did dig into the heart of one big arcs of the season, by that I mean the stolen “bad baby’s” of one Howard Stark. I thought it was awesome how Peggy was able to deduce (via a past experience in her life I hope we get to see somehow) how the items were stolen without being seen. This one scene alone shows how Peggy is a supremely talented and intelligent agent. Not just a woman, an agent.

Yet also, after an extremely fun fight scene with a supersized thug, we got to see how desperate Peggy is to prove herself to the agents who see her as nothing but a woman. This again goes to what made the premiere so great, as we have to watch Peggy struggle to gain the “approval” of her male peers, even we know how epic she is in real life. You could almost see her heart break when Jarvis told her that to clear Howard’s name, she had to do it in the shadows.

Jarvis by the way, had a standout episode here. If the premiere was meant to show he was to be a more than capable ally to Peggy, “Time and Tide” showed the man he truly is, and it’s one to respect.

Hearing his story about how he risked everything for his wife Anna (who we got to hear the voice of today!!!) was oddly beautiful. It also showed the compassion (and the influence) of Howard Stark, as he used his power to ensure Jarvis and his wife were not only kept safe, but kept out of trouble for what had happened. Though we only know him for a little bit of time, it’s good to see that Howard is very much the man Tony could’ve been right off if he’d been around his whole life.

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Sadly, those are where most of the good points end. As the rest of the episode dealt with some rather forced scenes, and many had questions of logic and “what was the point of that?” For example, I get that Angie is meant to the friend that Peggy needs, but she can come off as WAY too hyper at times, and then she’ll flip a switch and get mean. I’m glad they made up at the end of the episode, but can we tone it down just a bit? It makes me mad that we lost Peggy’s first roommate, as she was the perfect balance for Peggy’s personality.

And then, there are the men. Yeah…

I mentioned this in my review of the premiere, but the male chauvinism was a problem for me. Not that it was “insulting to men”, but rather it was hard to watch it happy to Peggy. This was exemplified in this episode, as we had to watch Peggy get berated and basically abused by her boss and coworker after she “made a mistake”. The hardest line for me was when her boss said he “didn’t know what he did to get you thrown in his lap”, insinuating that she was nothing beforehand, and not a war hero like we KNOW she is. It was distasteful, and ugly, and I hated watching it.

Furthermore, the male agents of the SSR (save for Sousa) seem like idiots! Thompson is the ‘pretty boy” who beats people up for answers, while Dooley has so much tunnel vision that he can’t see the truth right in front of him. They intentionally hid evidence to try and get Jarvis to spill the beans, to what end? What if he really was innocent? Or better yet, what if he wasn’t under Stark’s employ? Would they have beat him up to get answers? What would have happened when he didn’t have any? Apologize? Yeah right! I know this show is trying to show what happened back then, and they are right to do so, but even then…there’s a line.

Which leads to the second shocking death of the series in Krzeminski Now on the whole, this was a “good death” as in impact and shock appeal. Especially when it seemed he might be about to find out Peggy’s secret (a tell-tale foreshadowing of someone about to die perhaps?).

However, the problem for me came in when everyone mourned him. Everyone. Not just Dooley, Thompson, and Sousa, but the phone girls out front, and even Peggy! “But Todd,” you say, “Someone just died, shouldn’t they mourn?” Yes, yes they should. But after all we’ve seen from Krzeminski, would really everyone have been that choked up? Especially when they dropped the whole “I’ll contact his wife”, “I’ll contact his girlfriend” thing. He was a jerk first-class, a two-bit nitwit who somehow got employed by the SSR, and has no respect for women. I’m supposed to be sad he’s dead? Um…no.

Criticisms aside, this was a solid episode. Peggy and Jarvis again shined, which is important for me, cause they’re the real stars of the show. And with a majority of Stark’s “bad baby’s found”, we’re guaranteed big movement on this storyline. I hope for a big “return to their roots” premiere style in two weeks when it returns. Stark’s coming back, so there’s a good chance of that.

3.5 nerds

Todd Black is reader of comics, a watch of TV (a LOT of TV), and a writer of many different mediums. He's written teleplays, fan-fictions, and currently writes a comic book called Guardians (guardians-comic.com). He dreams of working at Nintendo, writing a SHAZAM! TV series, and working on Guardians for a very long time!